Posts Tagged ‘crash’

A Battle of Britain commemoration flypast by 20 Spitfires over London has been cancelled after the Shoreham air disaster made the cost of insuring the event unaffordable.

The organisers of the flypast, which they had hoped would happen on September 20, were told they would need third party insurance cover of £250 million, which would have required a premium of around £50,000.

It raises the prospect that air shows scheduled for next year may find the cost of insurance prohibitive as a result of the Hawker Hunter crash at Shoreham, in which 11 people died.

Paul Beaver, who was organising the event, said: “The intention was that 20 privately-owned Spitfires would fly over London to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. We had started the planning in March, and had applied to the Civil Aviation Authority and even the Prime Minister to get the go-ahead.

“The route we were going to take would have made sure there was always somewhere for an aircraft to land if it got into difficulties, and usually the individual owners’ aircraft insurance, which provides £5 million of third party cover per aircraft, would have been enough.

“But after Shoreham we took soundings from an insurance expert who advises the air shows, and he said the feedback he was getting from underwriters was that we would need to take out £250 million of insurance cover, which made the whole thing untenable.

“I really hope the underwriters take a pragmatic view when the air show season starts next year, because if they don’t it will make life very difficult.”

An unrelated flypast of massed fighter planes will still go ahead on September 15 over the south of England which will be attended by Prince Harry.